Today my neighbour Emma wanted to dust off some cobwebs from her and the R1, so we arranged a short rideout for a quick blast. First things first the R1 was thirsty so we headed to the nearest garage to quench it’s thirst. The Kawasaki under me felt twitchy for some reason, but when we reached the garage I could find no reason.

Once the Yamahas tank was full, we hit the roads of Milton Keynes for our ride. The mad biker chick was soon on full song, and disappearing in the distance. I realised the reason for the twitchy feel of the Z750 twin was the high crosswinds, as I fought to keep it straight. About two miles down the dual carriageways I caught site of Emma waiting for me. She pulled out behind me as we headed up the A509 towards Olney. Then there was a flash of red and white and she was off again, I was sitting at a comfortable Z750 speed, as she overtook some cars up the hill towards the first section of single carriageway.

Across a roundabout I had a toy with a BMW as he went to overtake, and left him in the outside lane (teehee beaten by a thirty year old classic bike) but Emma was still nowhere to be seen. Next roundabout I went across expecting to see her waiting somewhere ahead. I went up to Olney and turned round and headed back. The wind was getting stronger, and made riding a chore, so I headed home.

I arrived to a chorus of “you ok?” from my wife and daughter, as the mad biker chick had got back an age before. It appears she turned back long before I did, when she realised I hadn’t turned left as she had expected at one of the roundabouts (as no route had been agreed beforehand the chaos was only to be expected.)

Never mind, both bikes got an airing, and we both agreed it wasn’t such fun with the winds blowing us around anyway. The Z750 twin has had a bit of a busy weekend in comparison to the last few weeks, and hopefully the summer will give us more opportunities to ride it more often.

I’m not talking about the American sitcom set in the fifties in which a 30-something guy acts as a leather clad teenager and says “heyyyy” a lot while beating machinery into giving him freebies. I mean happy, sunny days with surprise events. Like this Saturday, which was a happy day. Why you might well ask, well here’s what happened.

Firstly my wife, asks if I’ll take her on the back of the bike to deliver a job application. She has been pillion on the Z750 twin, but only for very short journeys. Usually she has to be persuaded for a month before she’ll get on the Kawasaki even then. For her to ask to be taken on it, and for a couple of miles riding along major routes, well that’s an occasion to smile about.

What else could I do but get out the bike and fire it up? We both got our gear on ( Big Fat Gay Al donated a leather jacket for my wife and kids to use a while back, as it had got too small for him despite several herds of cows having been slaughtered to make such a large leather item) the jacket fitted Sue if a little loosely, and we set off.

I took things very gently, don’t want to scare the lady off of bikes again now she’s got the courage to ride pillion do we. At first I could feel the fingers through my jacket, and digging into my skin. At the same time my hips were being crushed by the grip of my wifes thighs as she clung on in fear of her life at 20 miles an hour! A few minutes along the smooth roads of Milton Keynes and she had relaxed her grip enough for at least some blood to get through to my feet again.

I opened the throttle on the twin a few times on the dual carriageway, but the grip remained relaxed. We soon arrived at the destination, but alas our trip was in vain as we couldn’t deliver the all important letter anyway as there was no letterbox outside the gates of the building. I made sure she was happy and we set off to ride home. The only incident of note was at a junction where I had to stop, and Sue had started to lean into a right hand turn. I put down my leg, and then had to use all my strength to pull the bike with the wife upright. Phew, that was close.

At home we discussed the journey in depth, the verdict was she liked it, and was looking for other places we can go together, within her comfort zone as a pillion i.e. within 10 miles or so.  It was also pointed out that maybe this could be a moneysaver as the bike would use so much less petrol than her Zaffira for those short trips to get videos (I mean DVD’s, I am modern and with it, honest I meant DVD’S I did) and for other errands when the kids don’t need to come with us.

At around 1:30 pm Big Fat Gay Al arrived on his (BUM) Bandit as someone had told him we might have a barbecue again in the afternoon. After a few minutes of discussing food, Al decided we needed more, and a ride to Tesco’s was in order. Not the nearest one though, we were going to Buckingham for the necessary provisions to feed Al and his amazing appetite. We both geared up and got on the bikes and set off for the A422.

It was a great ride there, along the twistys, and stopping for fuel along the way. £8 to top off the tank which I thought was going to be rather lower than it was having not been checked for ages. £8 equalled just a little over 6 litres of unleaded. Criminal prices, I can remember when it was less than (no wait I’d better not say what I remember fuel costing it will make me sound older than my 21 years).

Anyway, I left the garage with a full tank of petrol, and then proceeded to burn some off quickly with an awesome display of the tremendous acceleration of the Z750 twins 30 year old power plant. Then I backed off to let Al and his 1200 Bandit catch up again As usual the bike was fun, solid and stable to ride around the lanes to Buckingham. And all too soon we were at Tesco. We done the shopping for extra barbecue food which Al packed into his tardis backpack. Al did his best to make babies cry, and mothers complain as he started his (bum) Bandit and revved it with his stubby exhaust can barking loudly.

We were a little along the road back when I realised my helmet strap hadn’t buckled up properly and was flapping around my chin(s) so I had to pull in a layby to do it up. As we left, I tried to spray Al and the Bandit with gravel from my spinning rear wheel, but he hadn’t followed me across to the patch, maybe he knew my plans in advance.

Then it was home, and start the barbecue. We all know they won’t start wihout help, so I added some flammable liquids to the coals. My eyebrows, and lashes will grow back, this I know from experience, but wether the rabbit and guinea pigs will ever be the same again after the loud “woof” of sudden combustion, I’m just not sure.

The eventual outcome of barbecue food was delicious and bountiful a feast fit for a king. I also ought to add that Big Gay Al did get on something a bit more potent than his Suzuki though, as soon as he saw our Honda moped he wanted a go. I was reluctant as his experience of powerful machinery is limited to the Bandit and a couple of Kawasakis (ZX10 and 1000RX) but I let him try it out. He didn’t fall off, which is a shame as that would have made a happy day even funnier.

Yep happy days, may we all have many more of them.

This weekend was another quiet one for the Z750, although it did get a short ride out on Saturday. My wife needed a job application returning to a local school before the deadline so I was persuaded to bring out the old Kawasaki and be a postie.

My daughter Georgie joined me as pillion / delivery boy. The aim was to ride the 5 miles there, she jumps off, drops the mail, and back on the bike to home. There is an old saying about the best laid plans though…

The Z750 twin engine started brilliantly as usual, we both mounted up and in short order were sitting at the gates of the school we had to deliver to. Georgie jumped off, headed for the “Reception” sign then shrugged. No letterbox. She walked around a bit, still no letterbox. I parked the bike and joined in the hunt for the elusive mail slot. Ten minutes of searching and we admitted defeat, and rode home to face the music. End of the weekends riding for the Kawasaki.

It wasn’t all bad though as my new project a Honda Melody acquired for a mopedathon now has a charged battery, and starts on the button. It also drives and the brakes work which is a bonus. More to come soon.

My stepdaughter Bianca (nobody mention Rickaaaay, it’s not big, it’s not clever and it’s no longer remotely funny) has been staying down with her nan, and visiting us while she is here. She has never been on the back of my Kawasaki so she asked for a little go today.

She got on a spare helmet and a jacket, and looked like this.

Pulling away felt strange because she wouldn’t sit still for long. Also found she had a tendency to try to “help” the bike to lean into corners. She is no lightweight (sorry Bea, it’s true though) and it took a lot to keep the bike upright when she didn’t follow the same plan I was riding too.

We took a short ride, then went home. Her boyfriend CJ ( A DJ from oop North in Sheffield who works as Mad Dog Disco-tek) then had a turn on the back. A bit easier to handle as he is a little lighter.

Then Bianca wanted another go, so we took the Z750 Twin on a little jaunt down the A5 Dual carriageway. I ducked down at 75 ish so she could feel the wind (I wasn’t trying to get her blown off the bike honestly). Unfortunately she managed to cling on, and I had to refund the cash to everyone who’d paid for me to duck.

Both Bianca and CJ enjoyed the feeling of being pillion on the old Kawasaki so it can’t be bad.

Following a week of motorcycle practice on Project Gotham Racing 4 on the Xbox360 I was ready for some fast riding this weekend. I just hoped I wouldn’t crash as often in real life as I did on the Xbox 360 game. Don’t worry, I’m old enough to know the driving depicted in a computer game bears no resemblance to what you do in real life, it was safe fun and anyway those crashes looked painful on the Xbox360 how the avatar rider gets back on so quickly amazes me

So it was Saturday morning, just about, when big fat gay Al arrived on his (bum) Bandit, looking a bit hot after the motorway run up to Milton Keynes. A cool drink and a bit of chat, and some Xbox antics and he was refreshed enough to get on the bike again. I phoned a mate of mine in the area to see if he was coming out to play on his Virago, but he had other stuff to do, so it’s just me and Al.

We left my house and went North to the A5 and towards Towcester. Maybe the PGR4 sessions had some affect, as I pulled between the cars at the roundabout then outdragged them from the lights across to the A5 using the torque of the Z750 twins engine and shifting up gears low in the rev range to keep it pulling.

Then we settled for a steady ride to a fuel stop at Potterspury (sorry to the 2 men and a dog in that town if it’s mis-spelt ) I noticed the petrol station now has mortgage applications available for those filling anything bigger than a Mini. I think they will soon give the option of having your wages paid directly to the petrol companies if it goes up any more.

Anyway enough of the social comment and back to the ride out, we trickled through Towcester and turned left towards Silverstone on the A43. Along the A43 I was poodling at a steady 70 on the Kawasaki and Al was hanging back, then catching up on the Suzuki Bandit to keep himself amused, he is easily amused bless him.

Suddenly a Yellow Lotus passed on the outside, and Al was out there behind it. The driver of the Lotus wasn’t the playful type, and pulled out of the way to let Al pass. The chunky one pulled the Bandit back in in front of me, and shrugged his shoulders.

A few miles down the Dual carriageway, and the vibration from the twin was numbing my fingers. It was just under 5000 rpm to hold around 70 and that seems to be a place where the Z750 B1 engine finds most vibrations. At the first Brackley roundabout, I turned off towards Buckingham and some smaller roads. It turned out to be just right, 50mph speed limits, which meant cruising nicely around the bends for the old twin.

For all its quirks the Z750 twin does ride nicely around the smaller roads, although nowhere near the handling of a modern bike it still inspires enough confidence for Al to comment later on how much I was leaning the bike now compared to my earlier riding when I first got the Kawasaki.

Soon we were through Buckingham, and Al hadn’t held up too many tractors on his Bandit through the country lanes . We hit the A422 back towards Milton Keynes and got behind a line of traffic following an old horsebox. As soon as I had enough clear vision to see ahead of the traffic, I shifted down and opened the throttle past several cars, it felt good that a 30 year old bike could nip through as quick as it did. Next clear line of view, and we were past the horsebox.

There was a flash of red, and a lot of exhaust noise and a Bandit carrying what looked like a herd of buffalo but was only one man really (the effect would have been worse had he worn leathers) came past. After all the overtaking to get to the front he led us into the petrol station for a fill up. I watched as horsebox and all the cars passed by us again as we sat in the garage.

Then it was a quick blast home, and time to fire up the barbecue. A pleasant couple of hours spent talking about bikes, the preceding rideout, and eating too much red meat and it was time for Al to leave. I don’t know how he manged to get back on the Bandit after filling the generous tank on the front of his body, but he did and rode off back to Maidenhead.

So ended another fun day of riding, eating and talking crap. Hope to do it all again soon.

Just a P.S. before I go. I recently finished co-writing an e-book on classic motorcycle restoration. Find out more at a new site http://www.classic-motorcycle-restoration.com , and if you know people interested in motorcycle restoration join as an affiliate, give them your link and make 60% of any sales you make.

It’s a bank holiday weekend in the UK so consequently it’s cloudy, showery and changeable on the weather front. So as I won’t ride in the possibility of rain I decided to do some maintenance on the Z750 twin. Nothing too drastic, some minor lubrication and simple routine stuff was all I had in mind, about ten minutes of fettling in other words.

Firstly I decided to grease the rear swing arm bushes, which Kawasaki made provision for on the Z750 B1 by putting in a grease nipple on the swing arm. I retrieved the grease gun from my company van, and found it empty as I had left it. Located the grease cartridges and changed it. That sounds easy enough as I write it here, but it took 20 minutes to find the grease cartridges and to coax it into the grease gun which didn’t seem to want to screw back together afterwards.

After some persuasion and naughty words (the wife and kids were out so it was ok to use them instead of words like “oh bother” and “deary me”) I was ready to hit the grease nipple with the nozzle. Kawasaki saw fit to give us a grease point, but not to make it accessible. You can see it between the frame and the rear brake line I have ringed it on this blurred picture for you

It even looks accessible until you push the grease gun nozzle in the gap. I tried several different ways, and a lot of the swear words I knew before getting the nozzle on the nipple and pumping grease on the swing arm at the same time as into the nipple. I spent the next ten minutes with a bit of stick and rag cleaning the excess grease off the swing arm to prevent it falling on the tyre while I am riding one day.

With the swing arm having got as much grease as my blood pressure was going to allow before breaking out of several veins in my brain, I set about the simple task of lubricating the chain. Have you ever noticed how the nozzles of cans of spray (such as the chain spray I was about to use) have a habit of going missing?

Having located the chain spray nozzle I realised I was unable to spin the rear wheel to access the entire chain. I had to get the bike higher in order to get the rear wheel off the ground. I found a piece of wood, placed it carefully under the centre stand and heaved the bike up the extra height. The wheel spun freely and I lubricated the chain. It has been said at times I work on the wrong side of safety, decide for yourself now

I noticed the wood had moved as I was about to take the bike back down off the stand, it didn’t fall so it must have been safe like that right? You can comment below if you’d like to

By now the 10 minute routine lube jobs had run into an hour and a half, and I decided I’d had enough for one day. It is after all a holiday so I am going to rest now.

Another weekend, but this time the sun is shining and preparations have already been made for a ride out. Early in the morning my wife got the first text from Emma (the female version of James Toseland ) asking what time we intended to get out on the bikes, as usual we were waiting for Big Gay Al to arrive. Even when he did arrive we needed a fuelling stop before any serious riding could take place, so me and Al headed to the Super Sausage for a late breakfast

When we got back to my house, an impatient Emma had already been around the block several times and was itching to get going. Emmas Yamaha R1 was still warm outside the front of my house and she was in full leathers raring to get out there among all the other bikes, which could be heard on the roads around our part of Milton Keynes, including the A5 dual carriageway which runs along the back of where we live.

We chatted for ten minutes but still had no idea where to go to, and the others tried to palm off the job of route planning to me as soon as we mounted the bikes. As we left the top of my road it was like a “who can ride slowest” competition as they all tried to be behind someone else, mainly me. As the owner of a Z750 I was bound to come off best in this event, and this left Alan on his (bum) Bandit 1200 to take the lead.

Big Gay Al led us along one of the only two roads he knows in MK which took us eventually towards the A509. The two newer machines had left me behind along a stretch of dual carriageway and sat waiting in a layby as I went by, to have to lead them again and devise a route for us to take. I took a back road I’d never been down before which took us to a place I hadn’t been to before but eventually took us back to Newport Pagnall and back to MK’s roundabouts and dual carriageways. So I took the V11 south, cut across to the V10 past Willen Lake which is a nice place to view as you pass at a sensible speed.

The two speed demons were evidently itching to get going at a less sedate speed, but I kept them following around some of Milton Keynes smaller roads. I had a plan to get around to the bottom of the A5D dual carriageway and let them stretch the legs of the Suzuki and Yamaha machines, and neither of them really knew where I was heading until we got there. As we pulled on the A5 slip road I waved them by and settled in for my leisurely ride as I watched them disappear in the distance.

The Z750 twin is happy at about 70, and so am I, it’s fun, smooth and being a naked bike much faster means hanging on against the wind especially with my less than aerodynamic bulk catching the air. A few miles of this speed and I was at the end of the dual carriageway with no sign of Al or Emma, so I headed home. There they were at the side of the road waiting for me. I told them I’d been around twice but they made me out a liar.

A few minutes at home, and Emma went back to her home across the block, and Big Gay Al headed back for the M1 to go back to Maidenhead. I decided to visit an old mate a few miles away, before I went my wife took some pics of me and the bike and even posed on the Z750 herself.

<—-This is the long suffering wife astride the Z750 twin looking every inch the biker chick

And below this is me next to the Z750 before going to see my mates GSX750 F

The following short video is of me leaving home on the Z750

Shall I ?
Shan’t I?
It was one of those weekends as far as getting the Kawasaki out. Saturday had been forecast as showery for the morning, and less so for the afternoon, and Sunday was supposed to be showery all day.

I watched out the window Saturday and no showers all day until the afternoon, should’ve gone out on the Z750. Sunday was showery in the morning then brightened a bit. Cue hairdresser Emma and my long suffering wife pushing for me to get out there for a quick spin on the bike. I relented and got dressed for the occasion.

Emma appeared on her R1 just after her husband on his Suzuki GSX600 and we were ready to go. 2 kicks and the 750 twin burst into a fast idle, slowly off choke and we were off. Along the smaller roads to Towcester through Old Stratford, and all was looking good.

Just onto the A5 about 3 or 4 miles and the heavens opened, and nature threw her bathwater out all over us, and all the other bikers along that stretch of road. We all pulled over, and decided to brave it out and go through Towcester and see how it looked.

How it looked was the complete opposite of sunny warm and dry, and discretion overcame valour as we turned around and headed for home. I got the feeling Emma and Simon weren’t too eager to be hanging around for me and getting caught in another of natures cleansing fits. But bless them they did wait for me, and luckily we didn’t get caught by the rain again.

We covered around 10 miles, got cold and wet, but the old Kawasaki just worked as it should. It’s still got it where it counts. The only problem with it now is having got wet it’ll take ages to clean all the shiny parts again. Oh wait, I’ll do it the way I usually do, and just put the cover back on, no dirt in site now. Life is good.

A little off topic, but a company I affiliate with has announced a new range of Classic motorcycle manuals and literature in their product line up. As they include a lot of Japanese manuals for classic Jap bikes (kawasakis are well catered for) I thought I’d post a little about it, and it’s been quiet here anyway right

So here’s their blurb from their site at www.classic-motorcycles.co.uk/

[quote]NEW classic motorcycle manuals & instruction books.

We are proud to announce our NEW range of classic motorcycle workshop manuals.

Our classic motorcycle manuals have been reproduced from the original factory information, therefore they are very detailed and informative and include many technical photos and illustrations to help guide you. Because they have been reproduced from the original factory publications they are of a very high quality.

Included in the original factory publications are workshop manuals, parts manuals and instruction books for most classic motorcycle models. We have over a thousand manuals to choose from. [end quote]

Click here to go to the site then follow the link to the motorcycle manuals with this picture beside it —->
Take a look around at their other products too, they have high quality tee-shirts I know they are good quality cos I bought one for my dad with the Ariel logo on it.

In the April 2008 issue of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics magazine there is a familiar looking bike in the “Readers Bikes” section.

Yep at long last we have made it into print with a picture of the Z750 twin at the local Wolverton show last year and even got in a link to this blog too woohoo.

And that’s it really. Nothing else has been done with the Kawasaki since the last post, not even started it up. My excuse is that the weather has been crap. I’m sticking with that too, I refuse to ride in this Easter snow flurries and hailstones which the my part of England is experiencing and that’s that.

Did I say that was it, not quite. I also volunteered to help put together a new Z750 twin site with forums and a photo gallery. You can see my handiwork (I set up the site, and modified a web template to suit the theme) at http://www.LonesomeTwin.com as well as find other Z750 twin owners, and read about their bikes too.